Tux Redux

Daniel Phillips has relaunched his Tux filesystem. After Tux2 failed due to patenting issues eight years ago, Phillips has now invited developers to collaborate on Tux3.

Daniel Phillips officially introduced Tux3 as the successor to his defunct Tux2 project on the Linux Kernel mailing list (LKML). Phillips, who is currently employed by Google, points to Tux3's file versioning capabilities, especially the ability to reduce the metadata overhead created on file changes using his version pointer algorithm. Phillips describes his current results in detail in the email and is looking for programmers to join in with development work.

The benefits and limitations of Tux3 are described in great detail on LKML. The current source code comprises just a versioning algorithm. Phillips says that he is currently putting the source code for the filesystem together, a task that will involve some major clean-up work. Phillips has also set up an empty project homepage for Tux3 along with a brand new mailing list.

Daniel Phillips never published the code for the previous version, Tux2. An article on Slashdot provides a useful summary of the Tux2 project. According to statements by Phillips on mailing lists Tux2 was affected by patenting issues.